


the glitch

by days4daisy



Category: Westworld (TV)
Genre: Extra Treat, First Time, M/M, Porn with Feelings, Robot Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:00:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25294333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/days4daisy/pseuds/days4daisy
Summary: Stubbs answers with a laugh, short and odd. “Yeah well, you picked the wrong goddamn type of happy.”Bernard takes another look at the data pad. Pain levels, down. Pleasure levels, up. Body temperature, also elevated. Heart rate, climbing.
Relationships: Bernard Lowe/Ashley Stubbs
Comments: 3
Kudos: 16
Collections: Little Black Dress Exchange 2020





	the glitch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [M J Holyoke (wholeyolk)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wholeyolk/gifts).



“ _Bernard_.” They’ve been together long enough for Bernard to know when a curse will immediately follow his name. Sure enough, “Damn it...you didn’t get the right sensor.”

Bernard frowns at the data pad in his lap. It’s impossible, he’s looking at the readouts in real time. Stubbs’ pain receptors are down, and his drives responsible for happiness are spiking.

Hosts are designed to hurt like human beings, but it’s just that - a design. Bernard lacks the resources to fix Stubbs' shoulder at the moment, so he moves the sliding scale on Stubbs’ pain instead. He hasn’t made any changes as sweeping as rewriting Stubbs’ core directive this time. Doing so once was risky, but Bernard felt he had no choice. Stubbs aiming a gun at himself every five seconds didn't help.

The grimace on Stubbs’ face makes no sense. It won't surprise Bernard if Stubbs rips a hole through the bed cover, hard as he's clenching the thing. It's as cheap as everything else in this motel room.

“What do you mean?” Bernard asks. "This says your shoulder shouldn’t hurt. I even made you happy for once.”

Stubbs answers with a laugh, short and odd. “Yeah well, you picked the wrong goddamn type of happy.”

Bernard takes another look at the data pad. Pain levels, down. Pleasure levels, up. Body temperature, also elevated. Heart rate, climbing.

Bernard gives Stubbs a closer look. He’s lying on his back, shirt off to allow Bernard a better view of his bandaged shoulder. The wrapping extends down his chest, taped tightly around his ribcage for support.

Stubbs shudders under the layers of gauze. Heat flushes pink through his chest and climbs to settle in the high points of his cheeks. Stubbs’ jeans are tight, but looser pants wouldn’t hide Stubbs' current condition.

“Oh,” Bernard says.

“I fucking hate you,” Stubbs mutters.

“I can fix it.” Bernard adjusts his glasses on the bridge of his nose. “We must be missing a calibration somewhere. You jumped straight from general comfort to physical pleasure. That isn’t supposed to happen unless you-”

Stubbs’ hand latches around Bernard’s wrist. “You can fix this,” he grumbles, short of breath. “So _fix it_.” Stubbs glares at Bernard. It isn’t the first time Bernard catches himself wondering why Ford made his eyes so blue.

Attraction, from what Bernard knows of it, is a complicated premise even among humans. For the hosts, it's even worse. Bernard has no way of knowing all the inner pathways and passages Ford built into his design. Ever since he woke, Bernard has never placed any weight in attraction. Bernard likes strong personalities, and strong bodies. He likes thoughtful people who don’t think too much. Bernard likes to match wits, and he likes to prove a stubborn bastard wrong.

Bernard liked Stubbs even before he knew what Stubbs was. But is he truly capable of liking another thing, or is Ford in his head again? Or Dolores? Or whoever wants to pull the cables in Bernard’s over-wired consciousness?

Knowing attraction is a construct doesn’t mean Bernard doesn’t look down at Stubbs and crave. Stubbs’ grip on his arm is strong enough to ache, and Bernard likes it. He wants his skin to bruise, a dusty blue ring around his wrist to remind him of this moment.

“Are you sure?” Bernard asks, he can’t help himself. “The last thing I’d want to do is take advantage.”

“Oh my god, shut up,” Stubbs huffs. He releases Bernard’s wrist in favor of cupping himself. Even cased in denim, Stubbs does a good job of filling up his fingers. The zipper must be painful. Bernard can’t explain why the thought makes him smile.

He pushes a hand through Stubbs’ hair, and it’s a surprise when Stubbs nods up to greet his fingers. The tension between his eyes evens, and a breath of encouragement puffs out. Bernard hooks teeth into his bottom lip. Fingers still buried in blonde strands, Bernard drags his thumb across Stubbs’ forehead.

“Not where I need your hand right now,” Stubbs mutters between clenched teeth.

Bernard smiles, something he does now more than he can remember in a long time. “It’s called ‘build up,’” he says. “Something patient people do.”

“Oh yeah?” Stubbs cracks an eye open. “Well, neither of us are people, and I’m sure as hell not patient." This may be true, but Stubbs has yet to undo the zipper on his jeans. His fingers comb over the metal teeth as his waist twitches off the bed.

Bernard has every bit of inspiration he needs. But despite even his own enthusiasm, something holds him back. It keeps his fingers in Stubbs’s hair no matter how hard Stubbs glowers at him. “What?” Stubbs barks at last. “You’re always goddamn thinking. _What_ , Bernard?”

Bernard huffs a chuckle. He combs fingers down Stubbs’ scalp, and it’s a touch Stubbs’ seems to like. The anger on his face eases, and his eyes swim in a moment of enjoyment. The flush on his face deepens, and his lips pop open for a breath. Bernard likes this part most, cognitive function processing many uses for Stubbs’ mouth.

“If I turned everything back down,” Bernard says, “would you still want-”

“You’re _not_ trying to have this conversation when I’m about to punch a hole through my pants,” Stubbs cuts in.

Bernard rolls his eyes on auto-pilot. “You’re the one not taking them off.”

Stubbs lets out a long-suffering groan. A few drops of manufactured sweat dot his chest. Stubbs doesn’t have a lick of hair on his upper body. Bernard has to assume this was a cosmetic choice in production.

“I tried to off myself in a room full of you’s,” Stubbs grumbles. His eyes slant towards Bernard like he's accusing Bernard of something. “You sure you want to play the ‘would you still want me’ card?”

Bernard needs a second to let this thought run through his processors. It marinates in his knowledge bank, rendering a proper reaction.

The proper reaction is to lean over Stubbs and kiss him. Not a peck, not a quick ‘hello.’ He kisses Stubbs like he wants to learn him with his mouth. Like Bernard can taste his coding. Like he’ll see where Ford’s wiring ends and the woken side of Stubbs begins.

Stubbs sighs under Bernard like ‘finally.’ He opens his legs, a surprise, and urges Bernard on top. Stubbs seems to be moving well. The shoulder wound doesn’t stop him from shoving Bernard's suit jacket off. Stubbs bridges up to meet him, the outline of his arousal prominent in the front of his jeans.

“This may fall a little outside your core directive,” Bernard points out.

“God, I hate you,” Stubbs mumbles. He plucks Bernard’s glasses off the bridge of his nose and lays them a careful distance away on the other side of the bed.

Without them in the way, Stubbs pulls Bernard down for another kiss. This time, it’s rougher, Stubbs rising to taste his fill. The twang of soreness through Bernard’s jaw is a new sensation. He finds he likes it quite a bit.

The soreness makes Bernard desire other new sensations. The smoothness of the button holding Stubbs’ jeans in place. How easily it flicks open. The tug of Stubbs’ zipper between his fingers. Denim scratching. The tickle of hair on Stubbs’ thighs as Bernard pushes the jeans down.

“So,” Bernard observes, “they didn’t make all of you baby smooth.”

Stubbs rips Bernard out of his shirt so quickly that the buttons almost pop. Bernard huffs, but he shrugs out of the garment and lets Stubbs’ hands replace it. Fingers comb through the dark curls dotting his chest to the soft swell of his belly. Bernard wasn’t made anything like Stubbs. He knows who his inspiration was, but who inspired Ford to create his head of security is anyone’s guess.

Stubbs’ groan says he likes experiencing new things as much as Bernard. He tests the curves of Bernard's sides and the dip of his back.

“Hang on,” Bernard says, sitting up on his knees.

Stubbs grunts in clear frustration, but he bites back whatever smart ass thing he wants to say. Instead, Stubbs wraps a hand around himself. Bernard likes watching him as he uncoils his belt from his slacks. He wonders what the data pad would show as his eyes comb Stubbs’ body.

Bernard unzips himself and rises enough to shift out of his pants. He folds the garment neatly and places it next to his glasses. “I like this,” Bernard admits; the sentiment, and the confusion behind it. “I like how you look.”

“Better me than you, huh?” The sarcasm comes with a smile. “Quit thinking and get over here,” Stubbs says.

Bernard takes a detour to the nightstand - there’s a tube of hand lotion inside, for show more than anything. They don’t need moisturizer any more than they need food or water to survive. But creature comforts, even from a species not their own, bring Bernard peace. Turns out, the habit comes in handy now. Stubbs would have taken him without anything, but Bernard doesn’t want to think about that. He’s seen too much pain where they’re from to bring about more than he has to.

One finger is enough to make Stubbs groan; low and throaty, fists tangled in the bed sheets. “Bernard,” he warns, but his voice cracks in the middle.

Something amused and pained squeezes Bernard’s chest. “Let me do this,” Bernard says.

Stubbs must hear him through the spike he’s in. His balled hand thumps against the mattress in frustration, but he shuts up and forces his legs wider. It’s a hell of a sight, strong as Stubbs is. He’s hard where Bernard is soft, younger and fuller and firm in ways Bernard hasn’t experienced. Not like this anyway, only with the cold, clinical examinations of the Park.

Sex is a journey. Bernard loves learning, absorbing, processing, and improving. Stubbs’ body gives ample opportunity. Bernard learns what makes him tense and what relaxes him. What angle he likes. What makes his legs flutter or his eyes squeeze shut. The perfect thrust of a finger that drags a moan out of him. Stubbs is too high to even look embarrassed or annoyed by his own slip. His cock jerks at the touch.

By the time Bernard has him ready, his own arousal throbs heavy. It’s tempting to stroke himself to completion kneeling over Stubbs’ body. But it’s not what either of them wants, and what Stubbs wants is important now. When it became important, Bernard isn’t sure. Maybe the moment Bernard changed Stubbs’ core directive. Maybe before.

It’s like they're designed to fit together. Two human-shaped puzzle pieces tucked together for the first time. Stubbs would call Bernard a sappy bastard if he could hear the thoughts. But Stubbs is too far away, eyes as glazed as a new host’s when they get implanted for the first time. He’s breathing through his mouth, a hand draped flat over his stomach. It rises and falls right along with his body on every breath.

Bernard is a contradiction of hyper-focus and distance. He’s too buried in his own sensations for thought. There’s his temperature, elevated. His heart rate, rising. Pleasure spikes through his core, resonating to the tips of his extremities. His lips feel dry and his throat is parched. Bernard wonders if he’s ever felt this happy. If this is part of his own core directive.

Bernard also hears the shudder in Stubbs’ breaths. He feels the arch of Stubbs’ body, the cross of Stubbs’ ankles against his rear. Stubbs’ cock fills his own hand, flushed and wet with early release.

Were they designed to fit like this? Did Ford know somehow that the end would bring them together? Did Dolores?

“Bernard,” Stubbs hisses under him, “damn it.”

Bernard doesn’t make Stubbs ask again, because he doesn’t want to ask himself either. He wants to get lost in feeling. Put aside his internal processing, his knowledge, his rationalization. Those things can wait. Bernard wants to experience like humans do, and he wants Stubbs to have the same. He wants the spike to give way to relief, for Stubbs to crescendo with him. Stubbs groans. Bernard sinks into him, their bodies inseparable. Stubbs likes it, his eyes roll back and a corner of his mouth shivers.

“Fuck,” Stubbs gasps. He’s there, and he wants Bernard with him. It’s what Bernard wants too, he chases the bliss on Stubbs’ face, the tight squeeze of his eyes, the buck of his body.

Bernard catches up to him, funny enough, with “oh god” on his lips.

Stubbs’ chest is solid enough to carry Bernard’s weight. His body is wet with release. Bernard can't bring himself to mind.

With a grunt, Bernard reaches for his discarded data pad. Stubbs’ arm is around his waist, large hand splayed across his back. He feels fine, but Bernard squints without his glasses, trying to read Stubbs’ vitals.

Stubbs grabs the device with his free hand and chucks it to the other side of the bed. Bernard doesn’t have the energy to chase after it. He grumbles his tired displeasure, “You-”

“M’fine,” Stubbs sighs back.

Bernard shifts. Even in his post-orgasm haze, it feels good to be inside Stubbs. He’s warm and relaxed, softened by lotion. Bernard lifts his head. “But you-”

“Shut up, Bernard,” Stubbs mumbles. “You’re ruining it.”

Bernard should feel offended, but he thinks Stubbs is right this time. He relaxes against Stubbs' chest and lets himself be still for a while.


End file.
